Past
Rokugan has never been a great power in the Burning Sands. Their insular nature means they do not normally project much of their power in the Burning Sands and thus for the most part as Rokugan seemed content to ignore them, the City seemed content to ignore Rokugan. The Ki-Rin, or Unicorn, were well known in the area for being a group of very powerful nomads, the power they wielded while they were in the Burning Sands was significant, but seemingly as quickly as they had appeared, they again disappeared, heading back to their homeland after centuries of wandering.
For centuries after the disappearance of the Unicorn tribe, the Burning Sands had little to do with Rokugan. A few trade caravans a year might pass between Unicorn lands and the City, but any further attempts to increase relations with the isolationist state was met with rebuke. The rise of the Immortal Caliph meant that Medinaat al-Salaam moved further away from Rokugan, trying less and less to open them to trade.
The middle of the century saw an unprecedented amount of Rokugani interference in Burning Sands affairs however. The exile of the Scorpion clan and their subsequent enslavement by the Senpet played a large part in the Awakening, spurring the Moto to form the Erb’a Alliance which threatened to overtake Medinaat al-Salaam. The Scorpion were freed during the ensuing battle by Duqaq, known in Rokugan as the Hooded Ronin, and the battle was ended shortly after by a bolt from the sky as the Jinn Lord Kaleel was freed from his prison. The freed Scorpion also had a part to play in Awakening Shinjo and releasing Khayel for his eventual defeat. Bayushi Tage, one of the Avatars of Bahiya, took part in the ritual that awakened the Qanon and released the Rokugan goddess Shinjo from her slumber. Shinjo rallied the Moto and the Scorpion and departed for Rokugan once more.
Present
The return of Shinjo to Rokugan came on the cusp of the war against the Lying Darkness. She gathers the clans to assault Otosan Uchi as Hitomi challenges Lord Moon to combat. Lord Moon is killed and Lady Sun flees from the sky, subsuming the world in darkness. The Lying Darkness gains in power as the Sun and Moon disappear from the world. The war against the Nothing culminates in the Battle of Oblivion’s Gate, where the Nothing is defeated by the forces of Rokugan and forced to retreat once more, severely weakened.
At Oblivion’s Gate, many of Rokugan’s ancient heroes returned to the Mortal realm, including Hantei XVI, who began a war against the Toturi Dynasty that lasted for twelve years before he was defeated. Peace did not last long in Rokugan as Emperor Toturi I was killed before he declared an heir and another war began to determine not only the true heir, but against a new enemy of Rokugan, Daigotsu. He turns Otosan Uchi into a tainted ruin and releases Fu Leng to assault the Celestial Heavens themselves. The children of Toturi joined forces to defeat Daigotsu, which lead to the eventual defeat of Fu Leng as well. With Rokugan saved again, Naseru is proclaimed to be Toturi III.
Just five years later, Rokugan is swept into chaos once again as its old enemy, Iuchiban, returns to make his final attempt to conquer Rokugan. He unleashes the Rain of Blood on the Empire that causes chaos across the land. The Gozoku have a brief resurgence during this time as well as the Emperor seems incapable of protecting Rokugan. Using the knowledge they have gained from their time in the Burning Sands and the death of the Immortal Caliph, the Rokugani begin searching for Iuchiban’s hidden heart. Iuchiban meets his death at the hands of Hida Kisada and Isawa Sezaru. Shortly after, as enlightenment sweeps Rokugan, Toturi III decides to search for his own enlightenment. A path which leads him into the Shadowlands where an enormous battle against the Shadowlands leads to the death of the Emperor without any heirs.
The Moto, showing how far they have come since their return with Shinjo, are led by Moto Chagatai as he makes an attempt on the Imperial Throne so as to claim it for himself. Chagatai faces stiff resistance and the arrival of Phoenix armies with the Dragon of Fire ends the battle. Hitomi and Yakamo are overthrown by the Obsidian and Jade Dragons who declare a new Tournament to determine who the Emperor will be. In the end the Dragon win the tournament and Kitsuki Iweko become Iweko I, restarting the Imperial line.
The need of understanding the outside world was once again foisted upon Rokugan with the arrival of Kali-Ma, who came searching for the divine essence of a god. The war nearly destroys Rokugan as the Yobanjin attack from the North just as Kali-Ma attacks the South. Most clan’s lands are destroyed in the fighting, leaving only the Mantis, Crane, and Lion relatively unharmed in the fighting. The fighting culminates at Shinden Gyokei where Fu Leng has regained his divinity and wars with Fu Leng directly while his servant Daigotsu commits seppuku at the behest of Iweko and descends to Jigoku, where he begins a Civil War with the Realm of Evil itself for control. It is a battle that even Daigotsu begins to lose however, until Fu Leng is defeated in the mortal realm by Kali-Ma. In a final act of spite, Fu Leng sacrifices the final pieces of his essence to Daigotsu, giving him the power to fight Jigoku while simultaneously keeping his power away from Kali-ma. With Jigoku distracted by war, and severely weakened from her battle with Fu Leng, Kali-ma is vulnerable for the first time in the war, a fact that the samurai of Rokugan take advantage of. After a long fight, Yogo Rieko finally manages to break through her defenses and the bodies of dozens of Destroyers, calling up the kami to deliver a terrible wound on Kali-ma that nearly kills her. The Destroyer, with her prize gone and severely injured, chooses to fall back. Rokugan is victorious, but the cost is heavy.
Still destitute from their century of warfare, Rokugan’s contact with the Jewel of the Desert has helped to breathe some life back into the nearly shattered Empire. Most farms still lay fallow, many peasants are dead, and many samurai are talking of at least one lost generation, and the loss of most of their strongest cities and infrastructure has left the Empire fractured as Rokugan tries to rebuild, and prays for a peace long enough to see it done.
For their service to the empire, and upon seeing how well merchants were treated in the Burning Sands, the heimin peasants of Rokugan stood together and petitioned the Empress for recognition of what they had done for the Empire with an increase of status. Considering the truth of the matter, and the fact that the peasant merchants who were now the lifeblood of Rokugan may revolt if told no, Empress Iweko I granted their request, overturning a millennia of tradition in doing so. Though the peasants were happy and trade levels have only increased since the edict was passed, many samurai who favored the old ways are not. Those clans with access to the Burning Sands have, mostly, come out in favor of the edict, while those who already had an established merchant patron system have been outraged. Perhaps most telling however has been that the Crab daimyo refused to follow the edict, and was quickly supported by the Crane and the Mantis who did likewise. The Scorpion, Dragon, and Unicorn were quick to call foul on the other clans for refusing the mandate of the Empress and tensions across the Empire have risen drastically.
Future
In lean times, the power of any Imperial capitol can grow precarious, and Rokugan is no exception. With infrastructure still demolished in many places across Rokugan and rice counts that still force many samurai to subsist on barley, the will of the Empress is weak and sometimes even ignored by those who see fit. The issue over Merchant rights is only the catalyst. Now battle lines are being drawn between six of the Great Clans and those who are not involved may likely quickly find themselves dragged into the issue on one side or another, and fighting looks likely to break out.
Leaders
Empress
Iweko I, the Empress of Rokugan, has had a troubled life, like many in Rokugan. Born Kitsuki Iweko, among the Dragon. Iweko began her career as many Kitsuki do, as a magistrate who took part in several important investigations to root out corruption. When the chaos that followed the death of Toturi III began, she spent much of the inital time trapped in her castle as it was besieged, but her careful ministrations and use of supplies and allies kept the castle from falling. She played little part in Moto Chagatai’s assault for the throne, as the Dragon were heavily indebted to the Unicorn for their rice shipments. She was briefly considered for the position of ambassador to Medinaat al-Salaam, but was ultimately passed up because as a daimyo she had too many important duties in the Empire. When the Celestial Tournament was declared, Iweko was put forward as a candidate to take up the position. When the Dragon had proven victorious, Iweko was chosen, and she was granted a brief glimpse of the world as the Sun and Moon saw it. Touched by the Heavens themselves, her reign began.
Iweko’s reign was immediately beset upon by troubles. The invasion of the Army of Dark Fire to the North destroyed Phoenix and Dragon lands. It took the combined forces of Rokugan to beat them back at the gates of the Imperial city itself. By the next year, things were no better. Plague had sprung up across the land, leaving undead in its wake as a wave of Oni, unlike anything the Crab had ever seen, descended upon the Great Carpenter Wall. The Crab held the wall for weeks against wave after wave of the demons, but eventually the forces of Kali-Ma arrived and the wall was lost. The Destroyer War left Iweko in command of a wreck. Half of her cities were destroyed, most of her farms burned, and far too many samurai were dead from a century of constant warfare. She was left facing the great threat to the south with few men, little rice, and a population that was angered by the acceptance of the Spider clan, even purged as it was. Facing such dire straits, she has been forced to turn the attention of Rokugan to places it has never been before, outside her own borders, where she can only hope to find allies and supplies.
The true fractures of the Empress’ power have begun to show with her declaration of increasing the station of the merchant class. Several clans have now openly declared they will not follow through with her edict, and the Empress was forced to show that she did not have sufficient strength to force the clans to follow her divine will.
Ambassador to the Caliph
Kitsuki Kouri is an observant man and, like most Kitsuki, considerably more socially observant than most Dragon. It was this observant attitude that led him to great success during the Winter Court of 1168, making several friends among the Imperials and getting himself training with the famous Miya heralds. It was this great success that brought him to the attention of the Scorpion clan when asked by the Dragon who they should send to Medinaat al-Salaam as ambassador. Of the names put forward by the Scorpion, it was Kouri who found himself shipped off to a new land, filled with unknown dangers, unknown people, and unique experiences. The Kitsuki found a niche for himself with his training to observe all, and now in a society that accepted evidence for what it was worth, he found himself to be a rising star. But much of his fame came from being novel. He found more and more that his Rokugani mannerisms and beliefs became a hindrance that pushed him away from the Caliph and his court. They would call on him when they wished for amusement. So Kouri had a choice to make, betray his Rokugani training to better serve his home, or maintain his Rokugani manners and become useless to them here.
Kouri chose the former. He adopted a more native dress, began to speak mekhet with more regularity, and began to adopt city customs. Though he’s maintained a Rokugani estate, and continues to carry his wakizashi, he looks far more like some of the Scorpion who have made this city home for the past few decades than a proper Rokugani. Just as his adjustment began, word came of the beginning of the Destroyer War, and Kouri was forced to sit, far from home, with little communication from the home he missed. He wondered for several months if Rokugan had not fallen the way the Ivory Kingdoms had and attended court rarely. When the war ended, both he and the Scorpion, who had sent him here to disappear forever, were surprised by how important to Rokugan he had suddenly become. He has gained the ear of the Caliph, who rather seems to enjoy the man’s stories, and uses that to help his country in whatever way he can while also doing his best to make certain the Rokugani who are newly arrived do not blunder through the city and worsen relations between the two great powers.
Ambassador to the Sultan's Court
Prior to her transfer to a station in the border city of Karakorum, Ide Asuna was a rising star in the Unicorn courts. That particular career was ended shortly before the Destroyer War. The exact circumstances surrounding that situation are not entirely clear, and the beautiful courtier is disinclined to elaborate. Despite the change of venue, she has managed to prosper in the Sands where others might have withered.
During the last six or so years, Asuna has changed greatly, shedding the softness of the court and becoming much more comfortable working in the harsh environs of the deserts. She is known to wear armor and carry weapons, which has more than once put her at odds with her more peaceful Ide cousins. Still, she's gotten results and has increased the Unicorn's influence in the border city. After being called to the Jewel to help the Rokugani delegation, she was surprisingly named by the Imperial Court to be its representative to the resurgent court of the Sultan.
Despite only recently ascendeing to this ambassadorial position, she has come into it with a wealth of experience with the varied residents of the Sands, as well as the sage advice of her counterpart in the Caliph's Court. Many veterans of the Jewel's Courts are predicting she's going to have to be quick on her feet if she's to prosper in the coming Summer Court.
History
PastRokugan has never been a great power in the Burning Sands. Their insular nature means they do not normally project much of their power in the Burning Sands and thus for the most part as Rokugan seemed content to ignore them, the City seemed content to ignore Rokugan. The Ki-Rin, or Unicorn, were well known in the area for being a group of very powerful nomads, the power they wielded while they were in the Burning Sands was significant, but seemingly as quickly as they had appeared, they again disappeared, heading back to their homeland after centuries of wandering.
For centuries after the disappearance of the Unicorn tribe, the Burning Sands had little to do with Rokugan. A few trade caravans a year might pass between Unicorn lands and the City, but any further attempts to increase relations with the isolationist state was met with rebuke. The rise of the Immortal Caliph meant that Medinaat al-Salaam moved further away from Rokugan, trying less and less to open them to trade.
The middle of the century saw an unprecedented amount of Rokugani interference in Burning Sands affairs however. The exile of the Scorpion clan and their subsequent enslavement by the Senpet played a large part in the Awakening, spurring the Moto to form the Erb’a Alliance which threatened to overtake Medinaat al-Salaam. The Scorpion were freed during the ensuing battle by Duqaq, known in Rokugan as the Hooded Ronin, and the battle was ended shortly after by a bolt from the sky as the Jinn Lord Kaleel was freed from his prison. The freed Scorpion also had a part to play in Awakening Shinjo and releasing Khayel for his eventual defeat. Bayushi Tage, one of the Avatars of Bahiya, took part in the ritual that awakened the Qanon and released the Rokugan goddess Shinjo from her slumber. Shinjo rallied the Moto and the Scorpion and departed for Rokugan once more.
Present
The return of Shinjo to Rokugan came on the cusp of the war against the Lying Darkness. She gathers the clans to assault Otosan Uchi as Hitomi challenges Lord Moon to combat. Lord Moon is killed and Lady Sun flees from the sky, subsuming the world in darkness. The Lying Darkness gains in power as the Sun and Moon disappear from the world. The war against the Nothing culminates in the Battle of Oblivion’s Gate, where the Nothing is defeated by the forces of Rokugan and forced to retreat once more, severely weakened.
At Oblivion’s Gate, many of Rokugan’s ancient heroes returned to the Mortal realm, including Hantei XVI, who began a war against the Toturi Dynasty that lasted for twelve years before he was defeated. Peace did not last long in Rokugan as Emperor Toturi I was killed before he declared an heir and another war began to determine not only the true heir, but against a new enemy of Rokugan, Daigotsu. He turns Otosan Uchi into a tainted ruin and releases Fu Leng to assault the Celestial Heavens themselves. The children of Toturi joined forces to defeat Daigotsu, which lead to the eventual defeat of Fu Leng as well. With Rokugan saved again, Naseru is proclaimed to be Toturi III.
Just five years later, Rokugan is swept into chaos once again as its old enemy, Iuchiban, returns to make his final attempt to conquer Rokugan. He unleashes the Rain of Blood on the Empire that causes chaos across the land. The Gozoku have a brief resurgence during this time as well as the Emperor seems incapable of protecting Rokugan. Using the knowledge they have gained from their time in the Burning Sands and the death of the Immortal Caliph, the Rokugani begin searching for Iuchiban’s hidden heart. Iuchiban meets his death at the hands of Hida Kisada and Isawa Sezaru. Shortly after, as enlightenment sweeps Rokugan, Toturi III decides to search for his own enlightenment. A path which leads him into the Shadowlands where an enormous battle against the Shadowlands leads to the death of the Emperor without any heirs.
The Moto, showing how far they have come since their return with Shinjo, are led by Moto Chagatai as he makes an attempt on the Imperial Throne so as to claim it for himself. Chagatai faces stiff resistance and the arrival of Phoenix armies with the Dragon of Fire ends the battle. Hitomi and Yakamo are overthrown by the Obsidian and Jade Dragons who declare a new Tournament to determine who the Emperor will be. In the end the Dragon win the tournament and Kitsuki Iweko become Iweko I, restarting the Imperial line.
The need of understanding the outside world was once again foisted upon Rokugan with the arrival of Kali-Ma, who came searching for the divine essence of a god. The war nearly destroys Rokugan as the Yobanjin attack from the North just as Kali-Ma attacks the South. Most clan’s lands are destroyed in the fighting, leaving only the Mantis, Crane, and Lion relatively unharmed in the fighting. The fighting culminates at Shinden Gyokei where Fu Leng has regained his divinity and wars with Fu Leng directly while his servant Daigotsu commits seppuku at the behest of Iweko and descends to Jigoku, where he begins a Civil War with the Realm of Evil itself for control. It is a battle that even Daigotsu begins to lose however, until Fu Leng is defeated in the mortal realm by Kali-Ma. In a final act of spite, Fu Leng sacrifices the final pieces of his essence to Daigotsu, giving him the power to fight Jigoku while simultaneously keeping his power away from Kali-ma. With Jigoku distracted by war, and severely weakened from her battle with Fu Leng, Kali-ma is vulnerable for the first time in the war, a fact that the samurai of Rokugan take advantage of. After a long fight, Yogo Rieko finally manages to break through her defenses and the bodies of dozens of Destroyers, calling up the kami to deliver a terrible wound on Kali-ma that nearly kills her. The Destroyer, with her prize gone and severely injured, chooses to fall back. Rokugan is victorious, but the cost is heavy.
Still destitute from their century of warfare, Rokugan’s contact with the Jewel of the Desert has helped to breathe some life back into the nearly shattered Empire. Most farms still lay fallow, many peasants are dead, and many samurai are talking of at least one lost generation, and the loss of most of their strongest cities and infrastructure has left the Empire fractured as Rokugan tries to rebuild, and prays for a peace long enough to see it done.
For their service to the empire, and upon seeing how well merchants were treated in the Burning Sands, the heimin peasants of Rokugan stood together and petitioned the Empress for recognition of what they had done for the Empire with an increase of status. Considering the truth of the matter, and the fact that the peasant merchants who were now the lifeblood of Rokugan may revolt if told no, Empress Iweko I granted their request, overturning a millennia of tradition in doing so. Though the peasants were happy and trade levels have only increased since the edict was passed, many samurai who favored the old ways are not. Those clans with access to the Burning Sands have, mostly, come out in favor of the edict, while those who already had an established merchant patron system have been outraged. Perhaps most telling however has been that the Crab daimyo refused to follow the edict, and was quickly supported by the Crane and the Mantis who did likewise. The Scorpion, Dragon, and Unicorn were quick to call foul on the other clans for refusing the mandate of the Empress and tensions across the Empire have risen drastically.
Future
In lean times, the power of any Imperial capitol can grow precarious, and Rokugan is no exception. With infrastructure still demolished in many places across Rokugan and rice counts that still force many samurai to subsist on barley, the will of the Empress is weak and sometimes even ignored by those who see fit. The issue over Merchant rights is only the catalyst. Now battle lines are being drawn between six of the Great Clans and those who are not involved may likely quickly find themselves dragged into the issue on one side or another, and fighting looks likely to break out.
Leaders
EmpressIweko I, the Empress of Rokugan, has had a troubled life, like many in Rokugan. Born Kitsuki Iweko, among the Dragon. Iweko began her career as many Kitsuki do, as a magistrate who took part in several important investigations to root out corruption. When the chaos that followed the death of Toturi III began, she spent much of the inital time trapped in her castle as it was besieged, but her careful ministrations and use of supplies and allies kept the castle from falling. She played little part in Moto Chagatai’s assault for the throne, as the Dragon were heavily indebted to the Unicorn for their rice shipments. She was briefly considered for the position of ambassador to Medinaat al-Salaam, but was ultimately passed up because as a daimyo she had too many important duties in the Empire. When the Celestial Tournament was declared, Iweko was put forward as a candidate to take up the position. When the Dragon had proven victorious, Iweko was chosen, and she was granted a brief glimpse of the world as the Sun and Moon saw it. Touched by the Heavens themselves, her reign began.
Iweko’s reign was immediately beset upon by troubles. The invasion of the Army of Dark Fire to the North destroyed Phoenix and Dragon lands. It took the combined forces of Rokugan to beat them back at the gates of the Imperial city itself. By the next year, things were no better. Plague had sprung up across the land, leaving undead in its wake as a wave of Oni, unlike anything the Crab had ever seen, descended upon the Great Carpenter Wall. The Crab held the wall for weeks against wave after wave of the demons, but eventually the forces of Kali-Ma arrived and the wall was lost. The Destroyer War left Iweko in command of a wreck. Half of her cities were destroyed, most of her farms burned, and far too many samurai were dead from a century of constant warfare. She was left facing the great threat to the south with few men, little rice, and a population that was angered by the acceptance of the Spider clan, even purged as it was. Facing such dire straits, she has been forced to turn the attention of Rokugan to places it has never been before, outside her own borders, where she can only hope to find allies and supplies.
The true fractures of the Empress’ power have begun to show with her declaration of increasing the station of the merchant class. Several clans have now openly declared they will not follow through with her edict, and the Empress was forced to show that she did not have sufficient strength to force the clans to follow her divine will.
Ambassador to the Caliph
Kitsuki Kouri is an observant man and, like most Kitsuki, considerably more socially observant than most Dragon. It was this observant attitude that led him to great success during the Winter Court of 1168, making several friends among the Imperials and getting himself training with the famous Miya heralds. It was this great success that brought him to the attention of the Scorpion clan when asked by the Dragon who they should send to Medinaat al-Salaam as ambassador. Of the names put forward by the Scorpion, it was Kouri who found himself shipped off to a new land, filled with unknown dangers, unknown people, and unique experiences. The Kitsuki found a niche for himself with his training to observe all, and now in a society that accepted evidence for what it was worth, he found himself to be a rising star. But much of his fame came from being novel. He found more and more that his Rokugani mannerisms and beliefs became a hindrance that pushed him away from the Caliph and his court. They would call on him when they wished for amusement. So Kouri had a choice to make, betray his Rokugani training to better serve his home, or maintain his Rokugani manners and become useless to them here.
Kouri chose the former. He adopted a more native dress, began to speak mekhet with more regularity, and began to adopt city customs. Though he’s maintained a Rokugani estate, and continues to carry his wakizashi, he looks far more like some of the Scorpion who have made this city home for the past few decades than a proper Rokugani. Just as his adjustment began, word came of the beginning of the Destroyer War, and Kouri was forced to sit, far from home, with little communication from the home he missed. He wondered for several months if Rokugan had not fallen the way the Ivory Kingdoms had and attended court rarely. When the war ended, both he and the Scorpion, who had sent him here to disappear forever, were surprised by how important to Rokugan he had suddenly become. He has gained the ear of the Caliph, who rather seems to enjoy the man’s stories, and uses that to help his country in whatever way he can while also doing his best to make certain the Rokugani who are newly arrived do not blunder through the city and worsen relations between the two great powers.
Ambassador to the Sultan's Court
Prior to her transfer to a station in the border city of Karakorum, Ide Asuna was a rising star in the Unicorn courts. That particular career was ended shortly before the Destroyer War. The exact circumstances surrounding that situation are not entirely clear, and the beautiful courtier is disinclined to elaborate. Despite the change of venue, she has managed to prosper in the Sands where others might have withered.
During the last six or so years, Asuna has changed greatly, shedding the softness of the court and becoming much more comfortable working in the harsh environs of the deserts. She is known to wear armor and carry weapons, which has more than once put her at odds with her more peaceful Ide cousins. Still, she's gotten results and has increased the Unicorn's influence in the border city. After being called to the Jewel to help the Rokugani delegation, she was surprisingly named by the Imperial Court to be its representative to the resurgent court of the Sultan.
Despite only recently ascendeing to this ambassadorial position, she has come into it with a wealth of experience with the varied residents of the Sands, as well as the sage advice of her counterpart in the Caliph's Court. Many veterans of the Jewel's Courts are predicting she's going to have to be quick on her feet if she's to prosper in the coming Summer Court.